Profit ($) versus profit (!)

[Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

        Herman Holtz (sp?) seems to have opened a minor can of worms with
     the issue of using replies to make a personal profit. I agree with the
     idea of asking people for permission to quote them in print (as
     opposed to in e-mail, which provides context), particularly if there's
     a commercial purpose behind your questions. (BTW, to those who quote
     Herman, please don't quote his curriculum vitae in your response. Bad
     netiquette!) But I want to do more than just agree, which wastes
     everyone's time... I want to suggest another form of profit, which is
     intellectual and professional.
        Here's a proposal for mutual profit, in an entirely nonpecuniary
     way: We could all profit from a brief article in Technical
     Communication or elsewhere based on responses to issues raised in this
     newsgroup. For example, we might propose a regular or semiregular
     column called "professional views" or "views from the profession" in
     which the author collects and summarizes these discussions. For my own
     part, I'm going to do a little more research in the archives to make
     sure I'm not duplicating effort, then propose a message thread on
     technology transfer issues and usability testing for scientific
     information (as opposed to user manuals). This is NOT a proposal now..
     like I said, I want to do a bit of browsing first, and I'll post then.
     In the meantime, anyone who's interested in this concept (and
     specifically in tech. transfer and scientific info. usability), please
     send me a private post (NOT to the newsgroup) at:
        GEOFF-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA
     If there's enough interest, I'll pursue this more formally.
        Thanks.
     --Geoff Hart   #8^{)}   (Scary how accurate a self-portrait can be!)
     "The longest journey begins with a single posting.